Jonathan Franzen at the Hammer

It was good; he read from his new New Yorker story about breakups and an additional section that wasn’t published. He’s a fine, funny speaker. The moderator asked the question I was going to, so I didn’t – F. said the midlist was dead, it’s hard to publish a third book if your first two just did okay, there are many entertainments that have dispaced the novel in our culture, yada yada yada, don’t make things hard for your readers. He was asked about Oprah, seemed sort of embarassed, but pointed out that he didn’t refuse to appear on her show, she just disinvited him after his public remarks, which he now regrets, but it’s all in the published essay. Fine. The high point for me was talking to him afterwards and getting to say that I preferred Strong Motion to The Corrections, and that his Louis character is special and has really stayed with me, which is absolutely the case. He said he felt the same way about Louis. Listen, if you haven’t read Strong Motion, do, it’s really satisfying and good.